In this post I’ll be talking about a program in Brazil called Remission for Reading. To sum it up, inmates in Brazil can reduce their prison sentence by reading a novel and writing a review about it. Brazil has a notoriously high recidivism rate, at a staggering 70-80 per cent. There aren’t many conclusive reports showing whether the recidivism rate has gone down since this program started in 2012, but this program has been praised repeatedly online by former inmates as well as people all over the world for its rehabilitative properties. 

So, here’s how it works. Inmates have the ability to choose a book from their prison library. Books are available for people who might be visually impaired or speak different languages. Inmates are given 21-30 days to finish the book, and ten days to write a review, and are given assistance if and when it is needed. Inmates get four days knocked off their sentence for every approved review they write. Inmates can write up to 12 reviews a year, totalling up to 48 days of remission. 

What I like about this program is that it operates in partnership with the government in Brazil. Canada has a lot of non-profits that support inmate rehabilitation after release, but we don’t have very many programs like this that work with inmates inside of prison, especially not ones that actually allow inmates to reduce their sentence through education and reading. 

Canada has yet to approve a country wide program like this. In 2016, the recidivism rate in Ontario alone varied from 22.6 per cent to 37 percent depending on the length of the sentence- meaning shorter sentences have a lower recidivism rate. I wonder what would happen if the government of Canada began a program that improves literacy and inspires people to work on themselves in prison. This all ties back into the overall theme of my blog- I want you to think about what kind of people we want reentering society after release from prison. In my last post I told you to listen to a podcast called Prison Family that talked about the importance of family and having a social system and how that can lower the recidivism rate. 

We can see that a shorter prison sentence has a direct correlation to a lower recidivism rate, and that The Reading for Remission program in Brazil can lower prison sentences by over a month. Leave a comment and let me know if you think we should bring this program to Ontario.